GamerDad Relaunches

“Everyone” includes 5 year olds. I know European mores are a tad different, but I’d prefer to keep depictions of sex acts, even silhouettes of such acts, from my daughter until she’s, say, 10 or so.[/quote]

10! You old-fashioned guy, you. Surely 8 is OK now.

Are there countries in this world where kids get their sex education before ten years of age and can process what it all means? Yes, a silhouette has to receive the same explanation when a kid asks “what are they doing?” just as any other scene that depicts the beautiful act of making love (as my wife and I call it). I do not think kids are remotely ready for that sort of imagery in their single digit years.

I think ten is two digits. I think we should wait until they are well into their twenties.

That is very very true.

I am counting on my daughter agreeing with that. :wink:

Will check it out.

Er… some background silhouette of a coupling couple is explicit and harmful… how? I know this is a tired old argument and views differ and all that, but this seems pretty mild for a “really egregious thing”. Maybe it wasn’t a question of the ESBR board not knowing about it, maybe they (like I) just didn’t think it was a big deal?[/quote]

iirc ESRB never ever plays the games, they view a portion by video, or something, if that, and the pub or whoever says ‘yes that is representative of the gameplay’ and thats it. So no way would they see anything on the last level of any game. I think.

Er… some background silhouette of a coupling couple is explicit and harmful… how? I know this is a tired old argument and views differ and all that, but this seems pretty mild for a “really egregious thing”. Maybe it wasn’t a question of the ESBR board not knowing about it, maybe they (like I) just didn’t think it was a big deal?[/quote]

iirc ESRB never ever plays the games, they view a portion by video, or something, if that, and the pub or whoever says ‘yes that is representative of the gameplay’ and thats it. So no way would they see anything on the last level of any game. I think.[/quote]

Yes, that’s correct.

I guess where I’m coming from is that if such acts are decipted in an vague enough way, someone 5 years who doesn’t have any context for such things probably won’t even make the connection between the silhouettes and sexuality. On the other hand, if the kid does know enough to understand what’s going on in the background, it probably won’t confuse him much, no? (well, except for the fact that wtf does it have anything to do with a shooter)

I think we agree on why have ratings in the first place: to prevent kids from seeing something that would be harmful for them. We just seem to have different opinions on what kind of content is harmful. I’d be protective about frightening and overly violent/gory stuff, the kind of things that might cause nightmares to the kid.

Things related to sexuality I see more as a cultural taboo than anything that would cause actual “harm” to young kid. I think, for exampe, that tasteful nudity in a non-sexual context is absolutely a-ok for people of any age. Tasteful sexual acts? I’d say that pre-puberty kids are more likely to be uninterested than disturbed.

I must admit that I’m going with a pure gut feeling here. I haven’t actually seen any studies about the effects of sexual material on kids. I just feel that while giving sex-ed to 5 years olds wouldn’t make much sense, the opposite is also true. I imagine that a person who doesn’t encounter nudity and sexuality before the age of 16 or 18 will be ill-equipped to deal with their own sexuality and will have more anxiety and stress about the stuff than someone exposed to nudity and sex in their early years.

What do I think is the right age for a kid to know about sex? I’d say depends entirely on the kid. As soon as they begin to show interest in such things, I guess.

Um, I hope I answered your question somewhat. I really suck at keeping longer posts cohesive.

No, It made perfect sense and I agree.
While a site like Gamerdad makes perfect sense and is a great idea - I’d never suggest it as a guide in the magazine I write for (which is very family oriented), simply because cultural taboos are so different.
Nudity? No problem.
Secual content? Depends on the context and age of the kid?
Violence? It’s a problem.
In the US this is reversed. Ie violence is greatly accepted while any hint of nudity is a big nono.

The PEGI ratings are better than the ESRB-ratings and they’re still not really good because they’re made for the entire EU (with your country neing the odd one out ;-) ) and EU is not a cohessive unit.
The rating guidelines were decided by meetings between representives from all countries and compromises were made. Ie the most lenient countries compromised to please the prudes.
For example Sweden and Germany has a great problem with violence and gore, Norway and England has problems with nudity and sexual content, while England has a great problem with language, that the other countries didn’t share (one reason being that many games are in English, if ypu’re old enough to understand the word ‘fuck’ you’re probably also old enough to handle hearing it… a sentiment not shared by the British).

There are some ad posters plastered around Oslo nowadays, with unclad
couples clinging to eachother. Some positions are almost sexual, but
I think it’s perfectly OK. They’re funny. We only see nekkid backsides,
anyway. The consumer rights organisation (!) found it “revolting, discriminating
to human worth”…and put small, black bars over the butts on the posters.

Images of the ads pre-censorship here:
Dagbladet (in Norwegian, but you only want to see the naked flesh!)

Is this the same Oslo with the park full of sculptures of…erm…Erotica? :D

That’s the one :)
(Which makes it even more ridiculous)

If we are discussing Norwegian censorship I think it should be mentioned that they banned “Life of Brian” way back. Yes, the Monty Python movie. In Sweden it was marketed as the movie that was “so funny it was banned in Norway”. :)

I was just using Norway as an example on how hard it was to make an European rating everyone could agree on, not starting a ‘let’s make fun of Norway’-thread.
… not that there’s any lack of things to poke fun at ;-)

It’s a lame attempt at a thread hijack but it needed to be said. And replying again ups my post count. So now the score is Me 1, Norway 0. I win!

“I’m from Norvay. Isn’t dat veerd?

Site’s still up. Fully up to date with Wordpress 4.9, but it looks like Cary Woodham is the only person who has been posting there for years.

So you may be asking, why do I still do this? I’m not famous and it doesn’t pay the bills. But I’ve worked so hard over the years to be a game reviewer, a dream that I’ve had since college. And if I just quit something that has been a dream in my life for so long, it would be like I’m quitting on life as well. Plus, it’s hard to quit something that you’ve done for 20 years! I hope I can continue to review games for as long as I can. I’m a little worried about being able to do that for much longer, since all that VR stuff is becoming popular. I’ve been blind in my left eye since birth, and may not be able to play the VR games that are coming out. But I guess we’ll just have to see what happens. I hope you all enjoyed my trip down game reviewing memory lane, and I hope you all continue to enjoy reading my reviews and articles in the future. –Cary

I can see a dab of Dr. Matt Carlson if I go back further.

Here’s Bub on PAX 2009, recovering from his multiple heart attacks, plus site business background:

Maybe Bub became a writer?

When not playing video games for work, being a stay-at-home parents, loving up my wife and caring for the house – I have a dream. My dream is to become a beloved Children’s Book writer. I’d settle, however, to be published. I have several small novels finished and out to publishers, including this one. To lay Internet fair use concept and partially to get a reaction or two. I’m going to post the first three chapters of each novel one at a time. I hope you’ll read it. I hope you’ll let your kids read it. And I hope, when it gets published, you’ll buy it. This is my first novel ever and it was written when Shrek was so popular. It’s a sequel to Jack & the Beanstalk essentially. PLEASE comment! I have a thick skin. So, here goes, this one is for the 6-12 year olds out there: – Andrew S.Bub (all rights reserved)

The last Bub (Gamer Dad) post I can find is from May 2012? I’ll keep digging.

Andrew sold the content to another site. I’m pretty sure what’s on that version of GamerDad.com is only from after the sale and after he had his heart operated on up to the present day. Cary is a really nice dude, too.

I haven’t talked to him in years, but when he sold everything he did give us a cut from the payout which was nice. I was EIC for two years while his health wasn’t at its best.

Appreciate the update! I am curious, though, what does Bub do now, like for work? What’s his job? His kids must be 18+ by now, so they’re playing super violent games for fun!

These days you’d have to mark it down for failing to teach children about alternative sexual preferences.